The Small Husband

Heather Christle

If you want to talk to your husband
and your husband is very small
you lie down on the floor
and the floor is cold
but you warm it
and you look at the wall
where it meets the floor
You are five to eight inches
from the wall
and there are no other noises
Traffic everywhere has stopped
for the holiday
but the parade does not come by
for another couple of hours
and you are neither hungry
nor too full
and your body is a long silk bag
full of lightweight batteries
arranged on the floor
so it touches the floor
in the maximum number of places
and math has real world value
it turns out
which is not all that surprising
and there are weekends and desires
gestating in your throat
pink and hairless
like mammals
and you close your eyes
and say things to your husband
but he is small
no make him even smaller

Fast Clouds

It sounds good to lie on top of a thing and to melt halfway into it.
A raft or a hill.

Then you realize there is a splinter in your ear.
Or you are eroding and life seems dreary and no fun.

But it is good.
It is good to make a permanent decision.

If you break a window you’ll know more about time.
Maybe spend all day ruining the lawn.

It’s not possible to destroy cars.
Like stars they keep arriving.

They are gold white and umber.
They have learned to feed themselves.

We Are Being Paged

All the doctors at the hospital
let their hair down to keep
their necks warm. It was

freezing and they were everywhere.
They wanted to save our lives.
They washed their hands

forearms and elbows.
They could not get warm.
It was maybe the trees

keeping out all the light.
Something wants to harm
the doctors, mildly and over

a span of many years.
When one of them depressed
my tongue, we expected

radiance. Radiance was not
forthcoming and she continued
holding it down. I could

not speak. She did not
care to or maybe she was
distraught that she had

so little to say. She saidah. She was helping me.
I wanted to be her wife.

“Before I grew up in the house I grew up in, the house I grew up in had a wraparound porch. By the time we moved in, the front porch had become a garden. The side porch stayed intact and so (thus far) have we.”